Creating the Innocent Killer: Ender’s Game, Intention, and Morality.
If you’ve read Ender’s Game, and wondered why you like it so much… this paper is certainly thought provoking.
June 15, 2005
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Muli Ben-Yehuda's journal 
I’ll take a deep breath and stop myself from reading it during work (all bets are off as to if I succeed).
Comment by yrk — June 15, 2005 @ 10:58 AM |
I didn’t 😉
Comment by mulix — June 15, 2005 @ 11:17 AM |
I think this article missed the point a bit (at least for me).
When I read the book, the murders and even the genocide didn’t seem so important. The fact that the hero can kill and remain innocent is a premise in many science fiction and fantasy stories, and it didn’t feel out of place for me.
What made me like Ender is the fact that he is bright, no one loves him, and he wins, all the time. He wins friends, he wins battles, everything works for him, just as I’d like everything to work for me. The way he wins, which doesn’t seem too contrived but actual logical and expected, made it even better. Murders and genocide didn’t seem important at all, just another thing that happened to him.
Comment by shapirac — June 15, 2005 @ 12:01 PM |
> When I read the book, the murders and even the genocide didn’t seem so important
I think that’s pretty much the point of the article – that the book is immoral, because “murders and even genocide don’t seem so important”.
Comment by mulix — June 15, 2005 @ 3:09 PM |
If this was a realistic book, the point would be valid. However in this genre, readers are used to heros often killing the enemy without reflecting on the morality of the act. This is just part of the universe in a way. Maybe this was the point, but in this case most of the genre is under attack.
Comment by shapirac — June 15, 2005 @ 3:19 PM
Fascinating article, fascinating thesis
You’ll note the common thread between this and Card’s alarmingly right-wing (both for Israel and for the US) political opinions.
Comment by shunra — June 15, 2005 @ 11:41 PM